There was no one particular issue, IRC just gradually drifted from being fun and games mixed with a few emotional outburts and arguments, to a complete catalogue of outburts and argument mixed with no fun or games.
The thing about the forums is, it's mostly opinion, you can set some simple rules and limits on what posts or threads you deem wrong for this site, some things are irrelevant or anti-social and others are just plain rude.
The thing about a live chat is you've got people's personalities on display, not just their opinions. In the forums, if someone says something disagreeable, you can delete it and it should be forgotten about, if they make a habit of posting fights or flames you can ban them.
You cannot do this with personalities, what if I logged on and I was feeling particularly depressed, say someone died or whatever shit is going on personally in my life, perhaps I log on because I have several friends on IRC and hope that chatting to them will somehow cheer me up. I enter the chat and I'm greeted by:
dcomposed: Hello Kajun, you cunting faggot
BigEvilDan: KAJUN!
boorite: hey Kajun, you mass pile of twat maggots!
Now, personally, I know these are affectionate names, but let's say I don't, or let's say it goes like this:
Kajun: Hey guys.
Chicka: How's it going?
Kajun: I think I'm going to kill myself.
Boinky33: LOL
boorite: Yay! More beer for the rest of us!
I'm certainly cynical enough to take a suicidal threat on IRC to be a joke, or at least assume it's a joke, but who knows what's going through someone elses head? What if it isn't me? What if it's some other user who would actually log on to #stripcreator as some kind of last cry for help?
Sure, these are risks that are being taken in millions of chat rooms around the world every night, brad may be worrying over nothing, but if he's worrying at all, he has justification to stop the chat.
---
Dad was flammable
